MoDOT stimulus project list flouts federal law
MoDOT Director Pete Rahn (Eddie Roth/Post-Dispatch)
Congress has assured the American people that it will police the massive appropriation of stimulus money — almost $40 billion — set aside for transportation projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., claims public accountability as a political signature. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., warned the nation’s governors that his committee “will closely oversee” how the money is spent and hold a series of hearings this spring.
Here’s a tip for Congress and federal highway administrators looking for shenanigans: Take an early look at what’s happening in Missouri. Focus on the $427 million or so in projects approved by the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, most of them at a meeting last week.
Missouri Department of Transportation Director Pete Rahn insisted at a meeting with the Post-Dispatch editorial board Wednesday that his agency has fully complied with the letter and intent of federal requirements. He must have a different reading of letter and intent than we do.
The stimulus act requires states to select projects that can be started and completed within set time frames; half must be under contract by the end of June, the remainder within a year, and all completed within three years.
Missouri’s OK on this part; its projects are mostly “shovel-ready.” State planners and engineers deserve credit for moving complicated projects ahead.
But shovel-readiness alone is not good enough. The federal law also requires that “priority shall be given to projects that are located in economically distressed areas,” and that “recipients shall also use funds in a manner that maximizes job creation and economic benefit.”
In a widely circulated letter, Mr. Oberstar made it clear that the “Federal Highway Administration must approve the specific projects recommended” and “is statutorily required to ensure that all requirements of the Recovery Act, including giving priority to economically distressed areas, are satisfied.”
MoDOT and the highway commission have not met these requirements. Instead, they have treated the federal stimulus funds as just so much transportation pork to be spread around on shovel-ready projects as they see fit.
Nearly 40 percent of the $427 million in federal stimulus funds won’t be spent in distressed areas. Mr. Rahn explained that the highway commission has its own priorities — a “commission formula” that distributes projects based on political and transportation considerations.
“If we were only utilizing the federal law, we would not have a distribution of projects that would allow all regions to receive projects that are going to benefit that region,” Mr. Rahn said. “The commission’s policy is that all regions of the state are going to receive projects that are beneficial to them.”
MoDOT and the highway commission have been just as cavalier with the federal requirement to use stimulus money to maximize job creation and economic benefits.
Mr. Rahn admits MoDOT has done nothing to independently evaluate — even in a broad sense — the job-creating potential or benefit of the projects it approved. His excuse? It’s an “unrealistic expectation,” he said.
In other words, MoDOT doesn’t care what the law says. It’s going to do what it wants. It prefers to think that resurfacing a road in sparsely populated county has the same economic impact as rebuilding a heavily traveled viaduct in a dense commercial area ripe for further development.
Indeed, MoDOT wouldn’t even consider many eligible projects for stimulus funding. It had its list, and that was that. Eligible projects with greater potential benefits never had a chance.
Missouri deserves better. The nation deserves better. Gov. Jay Nixon should send MoDOT and the highway commission back to the drawing board. If they refuse, Congress and federal highway regulators should subject Missouri’s program to close scrutiny, including the bright lights of a public hearing.
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Note: Listen to an audio recording of MoDOT Director Pete Rahn meeting with the Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, during which Mr. Rahn argues the case for MoDOT’s allocation of federal stimulus funds and responds to challenges by Editorial Writer Eddie Roth. (Mr. Rahn refers to an earlier Post-Dispatch editorial, critical of MoDOT’s methods and transparency in allocating stimulus funds.)
Building a mile of road creates the same number of jobs in Joplin that it does in north St. Louis. So the job-creating potential isn’t the benefit here. Not only that, highway construction workers are rarely from the neighborhood in which the highway is being built, whether we’re talking about I-70 through north St. Louis or I-64 through Frontenac. So it isn’t even a question of who is getting the jobs.
Next question: What constitutes a “distressed area”? The areas of Missouri with the lowest household income are the chronically poor counties in the bootheel and along the southern border of the state, followed closely by counties along the Iowa border which have been devastated by the collapse of their agricultural industry. Is the Post suggesting that we should be targeting the stimulus funds on upgrading the roads between West Plains and Sikeston, or improving the roads between Tarkio and Kahoka? I doubt it.
Mr. Roth’s commentary here is full of criticism, but void of specifics. Rather than simply complaining that MoDOT isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, please tell us what you think they should do.
Nick - good question on the “distressed area”, but you need not even go that far. If distressed means anything similar to “blighted”, then you can put that tag on anything you want.
Additionally, I love how the Post spins the numbers. They say “Nearly 40 percent of the $427 million in federal stimulus funds won’t be spent in distressed areas.” But that means over 60% WILL BE spent in distressed areas. That sounds good to me, no?
This editiorial in 180 degrees wrong.
The highway commission is in place precisely so Missouri won’t have transporation projects used as pork.
St. Louis politicians want to use the federal stimulus to line their pockets and grease the palms of political donors.
By just about any economic indicator, southeast Missouri and north-central Missouri are just as (if not more than) economically depressed as St. Louis city. Check these Department of Economic Development stats:
http://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/wages/mhi_99.stm
http://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/share/share.stm
http://www.missourieconomy.org/images/indicators/unemp/unemp_map_0109.jpg
On top of this, St. Louis just received the largest highway project in state history with I-64. Cut the crybaby crap St. Louis…you’re starting to sound like you’re from Illinois.
Dear Amanda:
I allowed your comment through the firewall even though its IP address says it originated from a MoDOT computer. I think you should identify yourself, as well as acknowledge that federal law puts more strings on stimulus money than the annual federal highway appropriation. MoDOT is acting like there’s no difference.
If 60% of the money is going to “distressed” areas… what’s the gripe? Why not take the time to write an editorial on the “actual” number of jobs created by the bridge over the Osage River out west? I wonder if these are the “saved” jobs or the “created” jobs?
Kevin,
I didn’t read anywhere the requirement of identifying my employer in order to post. Sorry, misunderstood.
Regardless, the additional strings of the federal stimulus, according to your your editorial, revolve around projects being done in economically distressed areas.
I believe my original post provided documentation from the state of Missouri indicating where the economically distressed areas are in the state.
The PD needs to quit being a platform for the city to whine. The city wants its streets, alleys and city bridges rebuilt by MoDOT. The fact that the editor has to use spin, 40% spent not in economically distressed ares, makes the argument even more frivolous. I would expect a line like that to be stated on http://www.mayorslay.com instead of the paper. If you want an argument, why did our Senators run this money through the existing formulas. They could have easily directed much more funding to regional authorities like East West Gateway Council. That is where Sen. McCaskill has failed the region as a whole.
Just checked to see if APAC (the contractor for 1st Official Stimulus Project) was hiring with all their stimulus dollars. I didn’t call… but the website directs you to 2 estimator jobs in Missouri. NOW THAT’S STIMULUS… Even if the editor in chief at the Post could direct the money as he sees fit… There ain’t no jobs being created by the stimulus.
Typical example of the rural assault on urban areas. The thing that bugs me the most is that people in the city could care less what happens in cow country, but it seems like the people in the boonies hate us with a passion. Do urban legislatures go to the state and demand that rural interests and programs should be dismantled? NO!
On the other hand we have the likes of State Senator Brad Lager (R) who is going out of his cowtippin’ way to dismantle the historic tax credit (which is one of the most successful tax credits in the country), because he doesn’t want those big time developers to take advantage of tax payers money! Get the hell out of here Lager, you just hate the St. Louis and want the city to fail (he actually ran on an anti-urban platform). Oh yeah Nick Kasoff and the rest of you NeoCons should realize one thing. You cant compare spending money in rural areas to urban areas. Even though St. Louis City is economic distressed it still produces 10-15% of the states economic activity. That’s probably more than all of North Central and the Bootheel combined. The St. Louis Region is over 50% of the states income, why we are not getting our fair share seems pretty obvious to me.
What MoDOT needs to do is follow the law — that means not just cultivating projects that are shovel ready, but giving priority to projects that are in distressed areas and maximizing job creation and economic benefit.
MoDOT didn’t do those things.
If you click on the link in the editorial keyed to the “projects approved” by the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, you will find a power point presentation that includes a Map of “economically distressed” areas in the state.
You will see that the vast majority of Missouri’s geographic area is deemed “economically distressed” — measured in terms of per capita income of 80 percent or less of the national average or an unemployment rate that is at least 1 percent greater than the national average.
There is, in other words, plenty of opportunity to locate projects in distressed areas.
But MoDOT allocated only 60 percent of the $427 million in economically distressed areas.
There may be sound economic stimulus reasons for overriding the federal priority and not situating some projects in economically distressed areas. But MoDOT offered no such justification. And it did nothing to shape its project list to maximize the economic impact of the spending.
Rather, Mr. Rahn said that the highway commission decided to distribute projects according to its formula — and that is that.
MoDOT treated the federal stimulus funds as a supplemental appropriation to advance its transportation plan — elevating political distribution of projects over the legislation’s purpose: economic stimulus.
MoDOT also was advancing a bogus explanation for why fewer projects were planned for St. Louis region. MoDOT’s talking points were that the region already is the beneficiary of the I-64 reconstruction and Mississippi River bridge projects.
The claim is terribly misleading, and provides no legitimate justification for locating fewer projects in the region.
St. Louis is not a special beneficiary of funding for the I-64 and Mississippi River bridge projects. The region already is paying for those projects out of its share of future allotments from the MoDOT and the highway commission..
During Mr. Rahn’s interview with the editorial board he said he was “aware” of this explanation being offered, but that this was not something that he was saying. (Click the link to the audio recording to hear the interview).
I’m having a hard time squaring Mr. Rahn’s statement with a copy of a March 5 letter I received from U.S.Rep. Russ Carnahan addressed to Mr. Rahn, in which Rep. Carnahan thanks Mr. Rahn for “coming to meet with me last week to discuss this year’s reauthorization of the surface transportation bill and the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
The letter continues:
“In our meeting you said that due to MoDOT’s work on the Mississippi River Bridge and I-64, MoDOT was considering fewer projects in the metropolitan St. Louis region. I do not believe MoDOT will be following the clear intent of the law if there is not a fair distribution around the state with required priority for economically distressed communities.”